If I could, I'd do it different
by Thursday the 12th
Summary: AU starting at the beginning of S7. Basically a long-winded excuse for badass!Willow to go around saving potentials (because let's be real about who has the biggest hang-ups about girls dying all around her) and for Spike, Anya, Xander, and pretty much everyone else to get a more coherent redemption
1. Chapter 1

Episode 1:

A/N: I'm rewriting season 7 primarily through scenes that involve eating. Take that as you wish. Could be considered AU or multiple points-of-departure with seasons 1-6 of BtVS (and seasons 1-3 of AtS) as canon background material. This fic draws heavily on S7 plot points but takes them in different directions. The plan is to write 22 chapters, similar to the show, but we'll see how long the plot takes to write itself. I don't have much faith in my ability to write compelling monster-of-the-week. My OTP is (angsty, horrible, not fluffy) Buffy/Spike, but this fic is only a Spuffy fic as much as canon S7 was a Spuffy show. The Buffyverse belongs to Joss, forever and always. Grrr, Argh.

"Behind you!"

Dawn dropped to the ground, tucking her chin as she hit the wet grass shoulder-first, clutching the stake to her chest. She rolled to her feet and turned sharply, long brown ponytail whipping behind her, left arm raised to protect her head, breath hissing between her teeth, stake in her right hand striking out at - a big fat nothing. Dawn squeaked as she lost her balance, just barely catching herself from falling face-first into the dirt.

"Not bad. Reaction time's getting better, and you didn't run into a headstone this time." Buffy jumped down from the wall, landing softly in a crouch. She helped her sister up, brushing dirt from Dawn's front.

"That happened ONCE, ok? No need to rub it in." Dawn pushed Buffy's hands away from her shirt. Well, technically, Buffy's shirt...

"Hey, I'm rubbing it out. And, I said you were getting better."

"But not enough to actually fight anything." Dawn pouted, picking out twigs from her hair.

"I said I'd take you on patrol, and here we are, on patrol." Buffy's sweeping gesture took in the Sunnydale Memorial Graveyard, the moonlight filtering through the trees to the overgrown grass, unswept leaves piling around the headstones and around the entrances of the crypts. "Not my fault if nothing creepy wants to show." She paused, thinking. "Well, okay it is probably my fault, but in a good way!"

"Nothing's what's been showing for like, a week. Sorry if I see some big sister conspiracy going on."

"I am not making with the conspiracy, Dawnie. Besides, it's been nice. And summer's always pretty light on the slayage - or so i imagine, really, since-" Buffy shrugged. "You know." Even though they'd moved to Sunnydale nearly six years ago, Buffy had only spent a couple of summers in town, leaving the non-super-powereds to hold down the fort in her absence. Not that it was her fault. With a couple of close shaves, they'd always made it through.

"Yeah." Dawn leaned in as her sister pulled her into a one-armed hug, letting her check rest on Buffy's forehead for a moment before the two girls started walking towards the path. "Hey Buffy?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you want to drop by Clem's? I know we need to get back, but I saw him a couple days ago and he said something about kittens."

"You know he- never mind." Eats them. "Not tonight, ok? I'm tired, and you've got a big day tomorrow."

The two girls continued down the path, walking a little further apart. Dawn kicked at the leaves, while Buffy twirled her stake, humming under her breath. They walked in comfortable semi-silence to the front of the Summers house, which glowed warmly from the windows. Buffy opened the door - unlocked, but Sunnydale was pretty safe if you discounted things that needed an invitation -

"Honey, we're home!" Buffy called out, removing her new white leather boots. Dawn, halfway over the threshold, realized how much soil still clung to her front and decided it wasn't worth it to clean any more. It wasn't like anyone here could object to a little grave dirt.

From the kitchen came the smell of pizza, and as Dawn kicked grass off her sneakers, she could see out of the corner of her eye a young man wearing a red checkered apron. "Hey, what are you doing here - ?"

"Xander! Thought you were going to be out late." The kitchen was bright with a warm, homey glow. Xander stood next to the oven in pajamas, apron and bright red oven mitts, looking ever so slightly like a mixture of housewife and lobster.

Dawn wrapped her arms around Xander's waist, then disengaged to grab a slice of pizza. "Ow, hot!" She dropped the pizza back on the tray.

"Dawnie! You're- now I'm covered in dirt. How was the patrol?" Xander swatted Dawn away from the pizza as he tried waved oven-mitted hands to clear the steam.

"It wasn't. Don't change the subject, how was your date?" Dawn asked brightly.

"It wasn't. Did you kill anything?"

"Ugh. Nooo. Not a single vamp. Thought I was going to finally get to stick my stake in something tonight. Now I'm just all jumpy and frustrated."

Xander nodded. "I know the feeling."

Dawn grimaced. "That was dirty, wasn't it."

"Yup."

"Eww. Pizza?" Dawn poked the pizza tentatively. "Ow."

"Speaking of dirt..."

"Buffy's fault."

Buffy waltzed into the kitchen, wearing pink pajamas covered with little unicorns. "Is not. We were training, and Dawn fell over. Oooh pizza! Ow!" She grabbed a slice of pizza and quickly dropped it.

Dawn smirked, crossing her arms. "It's still hot, dummy. And yes, it's totally your fault. If there really had been a vampire there I would have ran into him with my stake and then I wouldn't have fallen over."

"Dawn, you can't rely on a vampire to keep you from falling." Buffy sighed. "You have to be in control of your own... Momentum."

"Yeah."

"So, nothing interesting?" Xander interjected into the silence.

"Not a single demon. I wanted to go see Clem, he's got kittens now! But Buffy didn't want to go tonight so we just came back here. She keeps saying she'll take me but we never go."

Buffy glared at her sister. "Ok, fine, you know why I don't want you going there."

"I know you go there without me. I know you're checking to see if he's back. I just thought maybe you could use some backup. I could distract him while you stake him. Or just, be there for emotional support, whatever."

"Dawnie, never bring that up again."

Dawn stared at the pizza, poking it nervously. "Got it. Sorry. I just don't like the idea of you going there alone. Geez." Finally satisfied with the temperature, Dawn shoved a slice of pizza into her mouth. "M'gonup stirs. Y'ha scoo tmrr." Her hair swished as she swung herself around the doorframe, the dull thump of her feet sounding on the stairs up to her room.

Buffy and Xander stared at the doorframe where Dawn had disappeared. Xander turned his head to look at Buffy. "You go there?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.

"No, not often, I just - I just can't do this right now." Buffy took a slice of pizza and sulked out of the kitchen, flopping down on the couch.

"No, Buff, that makes sense, to keep an eye out." Xander chewed his pizza, trying to form a more suitably supportive expression. "But really? You think he'd be that dumb? It's the first place we'd - wait we're talking about Spike. Yeah."

"Maybe he'd want to be found."

"Hey, sorry, not trying to pick a fight here."

"You could try a little harder."

Silence hung in the air, draped with the munching of pizza.

Buffy groaned from the living room couch. "I dunno, Xander. I just, lately I feel like I've been all, bam bam bam, rarghhhugh lugheugh, you know?"

"I thought we were low on baddies?"

"Oh, sorry, forgot you couldn't see the mime." Buffy walked into the kitchen and leaned on the counter. "I'm shooting myself in the foot and then shoving the foot in my mouth. Bam bam bam, arguhlump." She mined a gun, then picked up her left foot, pulling it towards her face. "Like that."

"Ahh." Xander grimaced. "Like that. I dunno Buff, I think you're doing alright. Better than alright. Good, actually."

"Sure, it's been great, it really has. The lull in the hellmouthiness, you moving in and paying rent, me not working at the double meat palace, all wonderful. Training Dawn, even. Still mostly wonderful. It's just that, it's maybe a bit too ok, like the world is just saving up a bunch of horrible and waiting to throw it at me - at us, when we're not ready for it."

"Or, maybe the world has decided to give you a break. Not entirely impossible. Maybe it used up all of the awful last year and-"

A loud knock at the door.

Xander froze mid-idea, mouth open, shoulders slumping. "I just jinxed it didn't I."

"Probably." Buffy grabbed the nearest sharp object off the table before walking to the front door. "I mean, in hellmouth time it's really been quite a while since we had a good old apocalypse."

Five thousand miles away, Willow woke up to the sound of screaming- the chirping of birds, and the gentle rushing of the brook that ran through the coven's compound in northern England. She flopped back onto her bed, a low cot near the floor of her small, sparsely decorated room. She rolled to the side and stared at the wall, staring into the flat, shiny, smiling faces of Buffy, Xander, and Tara, standing with a red-haired girl with a small, pointed face and a strong widow's peak, smiling at the camera.

"Hey, guys. Hey me."

She didn't really believe it. It seemed so long ago, Tara's birthday, the mix-up and the invisible demons, Buffy and everyone welcoming Tara into the group, making her feel welcome. Even Spike, doing his messed-up best, activating his chip, proving that Tara was just a human girl, not the monster her family wanted her to be. "Turns out that's me. I'm the monster." Willow couldn't stop the thought, a familiar ghost passing through her body, cold and empty.

The nine o'clock bell rang, breaking her train of thought. Late late late! Willow changed into a loose-fitting linen skirt and blouse and headed down the hill towards the main hall, brushing her hair into a semblance of normalcy. It was a dreary day, slightly drizzly with fog, but Willow didn't mind. Sunny days reminded her of Sunnydale, while the dreary ones - the damp permeating her skin, the fog so thick she felt like she was standing in a cloud, so unlike the dry heat of Southern California - almost let her become a different person, let her shed the painted-over layers she'd been wearing so long. Quiet, nerdy, awkward Willow. Late-blooming lesbian Willow. Addict Willow. Dark Willow. Those people were left behind in the desert.

"Hey Willow!"

"Hi Molly!" Willow waved to the dark-haired girl. Suddenly she felt a presence behind her, and hands clasped over her eyes. She felt a warm breath as a low voice whispered in her ear, "Guess who?"

Willow forced a laugh and shook Kennedy off her back. "One day you're going to regret doing that."

"Oooooh I'm so frightened, please don't hurt me, your dark majesty" Kennedy smarmed, smirking. "Pleeeease. As if."

Willow made an act of sighing. "Well you know me." In fact, they didn't, but it was nicer that way. It was nice to smile and accept the casual flirtation of a girl who didn't look at her and see someone broken by heartbreak, by the loss of trust in herself. It was nice to look into Kennedy's eyes and see herself whole, even if the tall girl was a little pushy. "Not so much with the dark majesty. But much with the tickle attack!" She launched herself at Kennedy's ribs, and her laughter was less than half faked this time. Every time it got easier.

"You two need to get a room." Molly rolled her eyes. "Will, joining us for a spot of brekkie?"

"Sorry, gotta go to ancient languages. I'll catch you guys later, okie?"

Kennedy shrugged, long ponytail flipping. "Your loss. It's something weird and British today. We're going to miss it." Right. When the exchange student program ended. "There's no way you get good blood sausage in California."

Willow made a face. "Eww to both of those things. Ew blood, ew sausage. Glad to skip. Speaking of skipping -" she looked at her watch and headed down the path towards the lecture halls. "Gotta run, going to miss a guest lecture on Sumerian grammatical exceptions."

"Come meet us at the fencing grounds after!" Molly hollered after her.

"Will do!" Willow hollered back. She snorted at her own unintentional pun. Will do. Will hunt, Will eat, Will.. What else did cave-people do again? Buffy would know. She was still making a list of cave-people things in her head as she walked through the lecture hall door and into a tall, tweed-covered man.

"Giles? What are you doing here?"

"Giving a guest lecture on Ancient Sumerian grammatical exceptions." Giles gave Willow a tentative, proper hug, while Willow dropped her book bag and squeezed him tightly.

"Ah, Willow, can't breathe-"

Willow disengaged quickly. "Sorry! Didn't mean to squeeze the life out of you. Really! But I get why you might-"

"It's it's quite alright." Giles smiled, straightening his jacket. "I hear things are going well."

"Yeah, the coven's been great, really great considering I almost - you know. Giles, why are you here? I thought Buffy, I mean, do they need me? Am I really going back next week?"

"Willow, I - " Giles broke off as Professor Kinney, a shortish, stout woman with grey hair who managed despite her physical inadequacies to appear quite statuesque, waved him towards the podium. "Let's talk about this after the class."

Okie.

Willow made her way to her usual seat, second row near the middle. Going back. She had thought about it a lot. There were days when she missed it terribly, missed her friends and all the usual haunts - the places and the people. And then there were days when she imagined going back and felt like she almost knew how Buffy must have felt, being ripped out of heaven, forced to face the world and its responsibilities. Not that England was heaven, but being here made her feel different. Not-Willow. Empty, but in a good way, like she was ready to be filled with new, good things. If she concentrated just so, like the coven was teaching her, she could take her feelings, her grief and confusion and hatred, and watch them pass like a movie in front of her face, incapable of hurting her. The impulse to lash out with magic would pass, too. She wasn't sure about holding on when the images were real, not just memories.

The class passed quickly, in a blur. Giles was a surprisingly good lecturer for a man who had spent a good portion of his life as a high school librarian. Or maybe it was just how funny Sumerian grammatical exceptions were.

Willow waited outside the hall for what seemed like an eternity before Giles appeared, cleaning his glasses as he said his goodbyes to Professor Kinney. "ah, Willow, sorry for the wait. I didn't expect so many students to be so interested in ergative case markers. It makes me feel positively excited for the next generation of scholars.

Despite her growing anxiety over her future, Willow nodded happily. "Yeah, Verbal prefixes are just so interesting! Really changes the - subject. So what's the what in Sunnydale?"

"Nothing actually."

"Giles, you can tell me. I mean, why come here and-"

"No, I am being serious. Activity is down, and we're not sure precisely why. Sunnydale is still the hellmouth, as far as we know, so in the greatest probability, something is brewing. But in case it's not... It might be worse. I'm going the council tomorrow to find some answers and I'd like to take you with me. I already talked to Samantha - Professor Kinney, and she's prepared a set of materials for you to study if you miss class on Friday. As for your work with the coven, well, think of this as a mid-term exam. You'll be using magic outside of their influence, and we'll see how you do."

"I'll -I'll be using magic? Outside?" Willow fingered the charm on her necklace, the one that linked her to the coven's source, but also tied her to the coven's strict policy of only light magic. It would stop working outside the circle of stones that ran around the village. "I mean, Giles, we're just visiting the watchers council. I don't think I'll need to... And if I don't have to..."

Giles pursed his lips solemnly. "I was wrong to ask you to stop. I have made many mistakes and - just because I couldn't handle the power when I was your age did not give me the right to make that decision for you. I can see that now. The struggle to reject that part of you may have worsened your condition. And yes, we may have need of your magic. I believe the council may be hiding something from us. Consider our trip less of a visit, and more of a, well, an infiltration."

Giles smiled wanly at Willow's bemused expression. "Let's get some tea and have a bit of a chat. There are many things I need to tell you."

"Hello, Kitten." A low purr, emanating from somewhere other than the ball of fluff scampering along the concrete floor, tackling the edge of the worn maroon rug.

Spike lay on the bed, shirtless, one arm hanging off the side, a strange look in his blue human eyes. His hung around his face in duo-toned curls, the white blond tips giving way to dark honey-brown roots. He played with his hair nervously, then abruptly shot out an arm, grabbing the kitten who squeaked in surprise. Spike looked almost equally surprised that he'd managed to catch the kitten, despite his vampire reflexes that should have made it easy. He brought the kitten towards his face as his eyes turned yellow, fangs protruding.

"I could just make you into a right meal, I could. Warm blood, seeping over that soft, downy fur. And you're not a person, you're not. You're a kitten. She was a kitten, too, when she wanted to be, but not like you. You're a real kitten, fuzzy paws and all so I could just - Ow!" Spike flinched violently, vampire face retracting, hands dropping the kitten to clutch at his head, causing him to fall off the bed. "Bugger!"

He was still lying on the floor when Clem returned, wobbling down the ladder into the lower level of the crypt. Clem looked with pity at the half-naked vampire doubled-up in the corner and pressed a bag of blood into his hands. "And I also got you some curly fries. Not from Doublemeat, like you said." Spike slurped hungrily at the bag of blood, vampire face showing for the barest of moments to rip a pair of holes in the top. Clem looked around. "You didn't eat the kittens?"

"Eh, didn't feel like it."

"Hm. You know I don't mind sharing. It's like Oreos. Never enjoyed the white stuff. Don't mind you taking the liquid. It's the bones that do it for me. Nice and crunchy."

"Maybe tomorrow." Spike groaned. "Doesn't make any bleeding sense. I don't need any more changes in my head, what with the other thing. Going to make me right insane, it is." With one hand, Spike shoved curly fries into his mouth, with the other, he lazily picked up a penknife and cut across his bare chest. He drew the knife across slowly with an air of expectation, lips clenched against the pain as he watched the bloodless wound opening, the end near his breastbone already beginning to stitch together. "Interesting."

Clem watched Spike glumly. "You don't say."

Spike shrugged, threw the knife across the room. It stuck in the headboard, next to a series of other knife-shaped holes. "Means something 'bout... Something."

"Right." Clem nodded slowly. "I'll be upstairs if you need anything."

Spike, ignoring Clem entirely, double-fisted the bag-o-blood and his curly fries, humming something curiously on-tune as he ate.

Buffy hummed tunelessly as she flipped the pages of the Sunnydale Daily. Personal ads, job openings, obits. That's what she wanted. She spread the paper on the table and picked up a glass of orange juice in her right hand, a waffle in her left. Xander, in the kitchen, flipped over the waffle maker and yelled, "Dawn! You're going to be late for school!"

Dawn bounced down the stairs, pausing at the entrance to the kitchen. "Gosh, stepford much?"

"Huh?" Buffy looked up from the paper.

"Xander's like the perfect wife."

"Hey! That's how to get no waffley goodness!" Xander yelped.

"I meant it in a good way." Dawn swiped the waffle from the pan. "Come oooon, mom, I'm going to be laaaate."

"Kids these days. No respect for their elders." Xander grabbed his work-bag and the keys to his car. "Aight, see you later, Buffster. Lemme know how it goes with the evil."

"Mmmhmmm" Buffy waved with her waffle-hand, staring at the obits. Was it really coming to this? Reading up on the recently dead, hoping that grandpa hadn't really died of a heart attack? "I did almost attack a delivery man with a pizza roller last night" she murmured to herself, admitting with a little guilt that she had been hoping for something a little more fangy - or scaled, or clawed, although preferably not dripping with mucus. She was antsy. She wanted to kill something. But no, instead, a delivery man with more of Xander's awful books on tape. She rolled her eyes.

In the car, Dawn reached for the radio. "Top forty, Xander. If you think I'm going to sit through Phil Whatsit talking about how to improve your mental whatever, you are so wrong."

"The first step is recognizing that you have a problem," Xander quoted. he'd gotten the first set of tapes thinking they could help Willow, but when it became painfully obvious - in the literal sense to everyone around her - that she needed something stronger, he'd forgotten about them. And then one day he'd pushed the wrong button on the console, and the warm voice of Phil Everett started talking to him, really talking to him, and it had helped him break down his mental barriers. Helped him deal with Anya, realize the best thing to do was to leave her alone. Realize that the best thing to do with Buffy was to find real ways to support her, taking care of the things she wanted taken care of instead of getting in her way.

"Exactly." Dawn turned up the boy-band on the radio.

Xander endured the boy-bandiness until he got to Sunnydale High East, now the sole high school serving the city, then quickly switched it off as he waved to Dawn. He pushed the button for the tape player. The tape whirred to life. "Today we're going to talk about love. How do you show it, how do you receive it, how do you know if it's healthy."

The friendly but tough advice of Phil filled the car as Xander drove towards his worksite, the old Sunnydale High. As he passed Sunnydale Memorial Cemetary, Xander swerved to park along the tree-lined street. "... Do you distinguish betwee-" the sound of Phil cut off as Xander cut the engine.

He wasn't sure what he was doing. He was pretty sure Buffy wouldn't want him doing it, and as Phil said, to love is to respect the wishes of the one you love. And he loved Buffy, not in the way he'd loved her before, or the way he loved Anya, but he loved her, that was certain. Xander found the way to Spike's crypt easily, having been by many times last summer. As he knocked on the door, he pushed back the memories of fighting alongside the vampire, the way the joking - ever caustic - had begun to take on an almost friendly vibe. Xander shook his head. "Why do I even bother" he muttered to himself, and shoved the door open. No lock.

"Oi! Clem?"

"You!"

"You!"


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: this is where things start getting interesting! Still kinda episode 1-ey**

Xander felt a liquid trickling down his forearm. He looked down. His first realization: Blood. And then the second: not mine. He took another look at the vampire he had pinned to the wall, at the long cuts across the left chest.

"You gonna stake me or just hold me at an angle where I can't watch the telly?"

Xander's third realization: he hadn't brought a stake. He looked down at the bleeding vampire again, with mild confusion. Had he somehow...?

"Did it to me self." Spike slumped, and Xander let him fall towards the floor. That and he wasn't quite strong enough to hold Spike upright and pinned. "Got what I thought I wanted, found out I dinnt. And now errything's bollocksed up." Xander took a step back as Spike rocked on the floor, head between his knees. Spike stopped rocking, and looked up at Xander with an almost sober expression. "I'm a bad, bad man. Nothing I can do about it now, things I've done. You should just stake me, you know. I'm no use anymore. Kittens. Makes no bleeding sense. Gave myself an out at the end, you're not supposed to make the request again, jus' at the beginning so they can't turn the words around on you but they still did it, gave me what she deserved, right? That's what it means now." Spike giggled. "Coulda decided I meant something else."

"The what means what now?"

"Willow, there are some things you ought to know. When I left Sunnydale the first time - and I don't expect this to make up for my actions - I left in part because I believed that it would not be long before you no longer needed me there. Not just because you seemed to be growing up, or because I might have lost myself to - never mind. I had reason to believe that the Hellmouth might be closing, for good." Giles paused as he took in Willow's confusion. "Yes, like everything else, even Hellmouths can grow and die. In fact, Hellmouth is more of a categorical distinction then anything else, a measure of the weakness between dimensions, and which dimensions that weakness leads to. Hellmouths open and close fairly regularly; Sunnydale's been active for a few centuries, since the Spanish I'd guess, but during that time it's only rarely been The Hellmouth, there have been stronger ones in Beijing and Poland and New York, to name a few, and we've been keeping an eye on Cleveland for a while now. And slayers, the way the power is set up, they're meant to follow the Hellmouth. Do you understand?"

Willow swallowed. "I think I might. You mean, they're supposed to die?"

"Yes. The slayer power, the responsibility, it wears on the human mind. And the slayer isn't meant to feel empathy for the demons she kills." Giles sighed. "It's just a guess, but I think that may be why the power chooses young girls just past puberty. The unformed brain chemistry, the willingness to accept a black and white world - those are attributes that allow the slayer to do her work most effectively. And the slayer herself, itself - the slayer essence, you understand - that never dies, it simply takes a new host when the current one can no longer... stand the pressure."

Willow stared, horrified.

"In this way, I suppose slayers are not all that different from vampires. They are possessed by the slayer essence, transformed into people they would not have been otherwise. They are tools of the light, not of evil, but tools nonetheless, temporary vessels of a greater power. Now," Giles smiled sadly, "I may be wrong about some of this but we can't know for certain unless we get access to some of the Watcher's more secretive tomes. We need to know more about how the first slayer was created if we want to keep Buffy alive."

Willow struggled with her thoughts, finally coming up with the least emotionally-charged question. "What about Faith?"

"I'm not sure. The slayer line does run through Faith - she was called when Kendra died, and we haven't seen a new slayer since Buffy... But the primary essence still lives in Buffy, I have to believe. Otherwise we would not have been able to call on her to defeat Adam." Giles furrowed his brow, cleaning his glasses. "Willow, the slayer essence requires a fight, and not just any fight. The good fight. If the Hellmouth is truly moving, the slayer needs to move with it, and I'm afraid she- it - will do so any way it can."

The two sat in silence in the tea shop. "Have you told Buffy yet?" Willow asked.

"I - no, not all of it. Just what I have confirmed. That hellmouths close, that the slayer usually is called near the active Hellmouth. And if she feels antsy, wants to fight, she should listen to the impulse, listen to what the slayer is telling her."

"So, not that if she doesn't, the supposedly heroic bit of her might decide it no longer wants to be Buffy shaped?"

"I didn't think it was a good idea to tell a recently depressed person that there might be a legitimate reason for her to kill herself. She's doing well. I just didn't want to ruin it."

"I dunno Giles. I think I've learned something about making decisions for Buffy without talking to her first."

"This isn't a decision yet, just research. When there's a decision to make, we'll let her know right away."

Willow's phone rang. "Ohhh Kennedy's going to kill me."

"Kennedy?"

"Not super important, actually. Goes here - with the university, not with the magic - has a big crush of the big-lesbian-crush-type on me. Might have led her on a bit. Didn't mean to, but I think anything less than and including yelling please go away might count as leading on-ness when it comes to Kennedy." Willow looked down at her hands. "So, I kind of, um, gave up and let it happen. Just the flirting, but I um, didn't want to have to tell anyone about, um, I just didn't want everyone all sorry for me."

Giles nodded, looking slightly bewildered. "It's certainly not my business who you date, Willow."

"Oh! ok, strictly business talkies."

"Ah, yes, that might be for the best."

The two munched on their biscuits and sipped their tea.

Giles broke the silence. "So, do you need to go meet this Kennedy person?"

"Um, no, I thought maybe I could sit here with you and eat biscuits and enjoy the quiet, or the planning, or really do anything else."

Buffy walked into the Espresso Pump, feeling positively twitchy even before her first mocha cappuccino. Days without some good evil ass-kickery were just no good for Buffy. And even if that grandpa came back she wasn't feeling too excited about the ensuing fight. Usually vamps who could remember a world war were plenty of dangerous fun. Not so much the ones who lived the next sixty years as humans. There was only so much vamp healing powers could do for a missing leg. She took her coffee from the barista - that's what you had to call them now? Wasn't that some kind of law thing? and looked around to find an empty seat, when she saw a familiar figure, now topped with shorter, browner hair than she'd last seen.

"Anya!" Buffy was positively enthused. Anya was a vengeance demon again! She'd have all the up-and-up on the evil.

"Oh, hi Buffy. You look excited to see me." Anya stared at Buffy suspiciously. "Why are you excited to see me?"

"Can't a girl just be happy so see her friends?" Buffy smiled winningly.

The round-faced woman with dark curls sitting next to Anya cut in, "Anya, don't forget that she's living with him. Whore."

"Hi Hallie, didn't see you there." Buffy's winning smile broadened to accommodate a sublayer of I'll-cut-you-later. And if we really wanted to get into who deserves that particular label... Buffy shot a look at Anya, who was squirming in her seat.

"It's Halfrek to you. And don't forget that without Anyanka here I could set a thousand vengeance spells on you. Plenty of takers. She seems to think you're not worth the effort."

"Really? I could use the distraction, demon. Could be fun." Buffy spat back. "Just give me a reason."

Anya placed herself firmly between the two women. "Hallie, sit down. You don't want to die." She looked almost concerned as she turned to Buffy. "Buffy, you don't want to die either, right?"

"Yes Anya, not suicidal." Buffy huffed.

"Good! Now let's stop calling each other names. Sit down, you can tell us all about how Xander is miserable without me."

Buffy sat down on the side that faced the door, putting herself next to Halfrek, who twitched once before settling down, muttering something about how the slayer couldn't kill her. Yeah right. But back to Xander. "Oh, he's reached an all new level of wig. Constantly listening to some self-help nonsense. And the wiggiest? I think it's actually doing some good - I mean, making him realize, um, stuff."

Anya pursed her lips. "So he's miserable, right?"

Halfrek snorted. "Please, Anya. If you really wanted him to suffer you know you could."

Anya turned sharply. "I know. And we talked about this and agreed that Buffy and Xander are good enough at making themselves miserable that we should just stay out of it and let them ruin their own lives."

"Hey!" Buffy interjected.

"I'm sorry honey, you know it's true." Anya nodded pityingly as she took a bit of her muffin.

"You know, ugh, whatever. Anya, I need to kill something. I haven't seen a single vamp in days. And on the demon front just you and Clem, and other - you know, people. Where's all the evil? All the ass-kick-needing evil?"

Halfrek snorted again. "Girl, you're asking the wrong demons. We're under the jurisprudence of Vengeance. Or Justice, if you want to believe the other translation of the ancient Sumerian grammar. It's not like Evil has offices, whatever you'd like to believe about Wolfr- but that's besides the point. Anya, I'm going to work. I'll see you later." Halfrek disappeared, her half-eaten muffin clattering to the plate.

"That was weird. One moment she's all get-off-my-turfy and the next she's all poof." Buffy pouted at the spot where Halfrek had disappeared.

"Don't mind her. Something's going on, and unfortunately, it's now above my pay-grade. You'd think that over a thousand years of service would mean something, but noooo, everybody starts at the bottom. There are limits on my teleportation credit. And my credit card! It's ridiculous." Anya gathered herself. "But whatever it is, even D'Hoffryn's paying attention, which means it's big."

"Thanks for the tip." Buffy smiled. "Take care, Anya."

Anya shrugged. "You too. Stay safe, ok?"

As Buffy walked home she felt almost hopeful. Big evil! Big, fightable, killable evil! She'd find Halfrek, beat the information out of her, and go kill things. Maybe break out the scythe. She opened the door to her house, walking towards the weapons chest with purpose.

"Buffy!" 

"Yeah Xand? You pick up Dawn?"

"Yeah. She's upstairs. Whatchu... Oh, you're-"

"Big evil, back in town. Going to kill it."

"Wait, you know?" Ever since he'd walked away from the crypt, he'd been wondering if he should tell Buffy about Spike. He wasn't sure if he'd done the right thing to leave the vampire alive, but it was hard to kill someone who flinched and hid from kittens. And he'd needed to get to work, and he hadn't brought a stake...

"You know? Oh of course. Anya would have told you too. Call Giles when you get a chance, would you? We need to get the research machine running."

Xander made a strangled sound. "Anya knows?"

"Well, it makes sense she'd be the first one to know. Vengeance demon again, remember?"

"Right." Should have killed him when he had the chance. No, better this way, let Buffy do it.

"Oh Xander. She still cares about you, you know that."

"Funny way of showing it."

"Yeah, she is all hung up on making sure you're miserable. Dawn, are you coming?"

"You're taking her?"

"Look, big evil? It's planning something, and that something probably isn't going to happen in a while. But it's out there and I have to deal with it, which means Dawn has to deal with it, and we made this decision together to let her be as prepared as she can be when the time comes. Besides, I really don't have any reason to believe this night's going to be much more interesting than the last. And she wants to go!"

"Fine! Just, put me down as saying its a bad idea." Xander sulked. "And I'm coming with!"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Fine. Come on. Grab a weapon." Dawn bounced down the stairs and the three walked out the door.

It didn't take Dawn long to notice the weird energy. "So what's gotten into you guys? And why is Xander coming on patrol? I thought he was making lasagne?"

"Anya gave me a tip about some big evil that's over her pay grade, and Xander's freaking out for no good reason." Buffy swished her hair.

"Wait a minute." Xander said. The three paused at the entrance to Restfield Cemetery. "This is Restfield."

"Yeah. Let's go check out grandpa and then we can try out somewhere else. Maybe St. Mary's?"

"Not Sunnydale Memorial?"

"We were there last night, Xander. No fresh graves today. Why are you looking at me like -"

"Watch out!"

Dawn twisted to see a vampire behind her. She dropped into a crouch, letting his hands swipe at empty air. She rolled away, kicking at his shins. She barely noticed Xander fighting next to her, barely holding off a vampire who looked like he was missing a leg, Buffy handily dispatching another with a swift kick to the head before being rushed by two more. The vampire picked her up and threw Dawn on top of a nearby sarcophagus. She whimpered at the impact, wondering if anything had broken. "Buffy!" She coughed, spitting out blood.

Buffy ended her fight, staking the two vampires with an ease that suggested she'd been holding herself back and ran towards Dawn, but Dawn could tell it was too late, she wouldn't make it in time. The vampire was too close, running towards her now, she could feel time begin to slow as the adrenaline pumped through her veins, telling her to stand up, run away.

Dawn realized she was still holding her stake, and pushed herself up just in time to see the vampire snarling not two feet from her. From her higher position on the sarcophagus, she toppled towards him, stake outstretched, putting all of her small weight into the motion. For a moment, the vampire caught her, its yellow eyes staring hungrily into hers, mouth twisting towards her neck. Then, just as Dawn felt the teeth about to pierce her flesh, she fell into a heap on the ground, coughing as the dust settled around her.

She looked around. Xander had finally dispatched his vampire, Buffy sprinting in the opposite direction, pinning the last vampire to a tree. A few words passed between them, then the vamp was dust. Buffy dashed back to Dawn. "Dawnie, I'm so sorry, I should have - are you hurt?"

Dawn struggled to her feet. "I'm bruised, and I think I bit my tongue, but... Buffy I did it! I killed one! All by myself!"

"You did and I'm so proud but you're covered in dirt and - did you break anything? You took a pretty hard fall there." Dawn looked at her sister, who was somehow pristine, white pants unblemished.

"I'm fine, Buffy, really. So did you get any good info from mr I-think-I-can-outrun-the-slayer?"

"No, not really. He was just babbling. In Spanish! I never paid too much attention in Spanish. Doesn't matter. You're ok, I'm ok, Xander?"

"Ok. Thanks for asking!" Xander picked himself off the ground. "So, Buffy, want to tell us about the big evil?"

"Oh, Anya just mentioned something. Pretty vague, really. Big evil, D'Hoffryn's checking it out."

"Thought he was part of the big evil?"

"Nahhh, evidently vengeance and evil are different... Departments or something. But yeah, something's brewing."

"Oh, so nothing specific, like, in a graveyard in Sunnydale?"

"Nah. Just your generic, mysterious evil." She looked positively excited. "Let's get Dawn home. Tomorrow I can go beat up Halfrek and we can find out more."

"You're the boss." Xander knew he would regret it later, but he kept his mouth shut about the other, specific evil. Buffy was just so happy, and he didn't want to ruin it. Together, the three walked back towards Revello Drive, Buffy laughing, stake twirling one hand on Dawn's shoulder. Xander sighed. He'd tell her tomorrow.

The darkness rumbled, coalesced, and broke up again into a fine mist. The vampire trembled. The darkness spoke. "Did he tell her?"

"Yes, but I don't think she understood."

"The message was clear."

"I don't think she speaks Spanish."

A deep sigh from the darkness. "I hate translating from the original. Loses so much of the meaning."

The vampire was silent.

"Very well, it does not matter. The situational irony holds. She knows, but she does not know. It is too late, we have what we need. You may go now. I release you. And I've got a call, so if you don't mind? Pass on the message to the others."

The darkness disappeared, reappeared in the middle of a pentagram surrounded by chanting figures in dark robes. Skulls lined the walls of the catacomb, grinning bleakly in the candlelight. A girl, bound and gagged, screamed silently, a curved knife protruding from her abdomen. One of the hooded figures paused to push her forward to the middle of the pentagram. She stumbled, falling to her knees in the center. Blood leaked from the wound, pooling around her knees into the dirt. The darkness sighed, hoping for the best. It crossed its fingers - or whatever passed for fingers belonging to an amorphous darkness, and seeped into the girl through the wound. The knife fell to the ground. The darkness could ate through the body, claiming the nervous system, the musculature. The ropes fell from her hands and feet, the wound in her abdomen sealed, her clothes crumbled to the ground. She began to vibrate with increasing frequency, flinging her head back, mouth opening as a column of darkness shot simultaneously upwards and downwards through her body.


End file.
